Note 300 — Chapter XLIV
Reading edition
Miss Mary Catherine Goddard conducted the Baltimore post-office and also the only newspaper in the city, the Maryland Journal and Commercial Advertiser, through all the trying times of the Revolutionary War. On July 12, 1775, she published a detailed account of the battle of Bunker Hill, which had occurred on June 17, and the Declaration of the Continental Congress giving the causes and necessity for taking up arms. The first official publication of the Declaration of Independence, with the signers' names attached, was entrusted by Congress, at that time sitting in Baltimore, to Miss Goddard.
She remained in control of her paper for ten years. In 1779 she made an appeal through its columns for the destitute families of the American soldiers, and by her efforts $25,000 were raised for their needs.